Thursday, January 29, 2015

Team Drea Challenge Guest Post #1: by Ashley

Andrea and I met in 2002 when we were teammates together
on the Davidson Crew team. I was two
years behind her in school and looked up to her as a great leader and
motivator. Three years later, I followed
in her footsteps and became the Dean Rusk Fellow for Davidson’s International
Studies Program, a position for recent graduates that she had filled in
2003. I devoured the notes and
instructions she left behind for successive Fellows, and in this way she was
once again influential in my life.

Now over twelve years after our first meeting, life has
brought us back together. Andrea and I
live less than five miles from each other.However, neither of us realized how near we lived to one another until I
learned of her diagnosis and reached out to her and Dave.My husband Doug and I have been deeply
inspired by Andrea’s story.When Andrea issued
the 2015 Team Drea Challenge, we agreed to participate without hesitation.The only question was how?

Instead
of choosing a single race, Doug and I finally decided that we would participate
as a family in one race per month to raise money for the Blazeman Foundation to
find a cure for ALS and care for those fighting it. At each event, one of
us will race while the non-racer pushes Otto (2 ½) and Isabella (8 months) in
the Bob jogger or offers spectator support. Our goal is to raise
$5,000 by the end of the year. We
are matching every dollar donated toward our race series, up to $2,500. You can see our fundraising page and race
plans here.

Doug, Otto, Isabella, and Ashley in their “Kollmes for
Team Drea” Shirts

This past Saturday I ran the first of our 12-race series,
the Miami Tropical 5K, which is the “warm-up race” for the Miami Marathon.

My journey to the starting line was filled
with amusing obstacles that created less-than-ideal pre-race conditions. First of all, our flight from DC was delayed. With baby in tow and all of her paraphernalia,
we stumbled in to our South Beach hotel close to midnight. On the morning of the race, my cab got stuck
in traffic because the roads were blocked and I ended up running along the
highway to get to the start. When I went
to retrieve my race packet, the volunteers could not find my race bib and
scrambled to assign a new number to me with less than ten minutes left until
the gun went off.

Despite the frenzy, I showed up to the
starting line with a smile, reminding myself of why I was running. I was doing this race for Andrea. The run represented my attempt to find a
meaningful way to join her in her struggle against ALS, to do my small part in
raising money to find a cure as she has challenged us all to do.

The gun went off, and as I huffed and puffed down the McArthur
Causeway, past giant cruise ships in the Port of Miami, I embraced the pain of
the race. The first two miles went by
quickly, but the last one was grueling.
My body was not used to Miami’s punishing heat and humidity. As I inched
forward toward the end of the race at Nikki Beach, I felt like I was hitting a
wall, but once I turned the corner and could see the finish line, I could
hardly believe what the clock was telling me: that I would break 19 minutes, a personal
barrier that I had not officially broken in almost six years. But more exciting than achieving a personal
goal was the press that Team Drea got as a result (here).

In the past, the imperfect circumstances leading up to
the race would have thrown me off mentally, hindering my performance.However, I had one of my best races
ever.I chalk it up to this: Andrea is
inspiring me to live more fully in each moment, with passion and heart,
remembering that we only have one shot at this life, and there is no time for
small excuses to hold us back. And her influence
and motivation is carrying over into other more important areas of my life beyond
racing.

I will conclude with one of my favorite Brian Andreas
quotes, which reminds me of her:

Thank you, Andrea, for your inspiration. You are a real hero to our family, and we are
proud to be members of Team Drea.